


A Nightmare

by sacredsymbol821



Category: Dragon Age, dragon age inquistion
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Im just tagging just in case, Temporary Character Death, if it's even that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:58:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5400305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sacredsymbol821/pseuds/sacredsymbol821
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nightmare Demon shook Nikolai Trevelyan up more than he initially let on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Nightmare

Nikolai was scribbling furiously in the candlelight. His eyes were burning and words were coming slower and slower to the point where he wasn’t sure what he was writing was legible. He was not going to sleep ever again, as far as he was concerned. The Nightmare Demon had scared him. More than he had let on in the Fade. The Nightmare had messed with his head, especially when he saw snakes coming to attack him on the ground. Some of the snakes had turned into Templar Swords hot with heat, which had caused dread to pool up in his stomach as he cast ice after ice spell to get them away from him.

  
Nikolai’s eyes began to droop, and he quickly shook his head, but his eyes were watering. He was going to fall asleep soon, and there was nothing he could to stop it. He could try and get some coffee, but were the kitchens even open this early in the morning?  
Despite everything, Nikolai felt his head grew heavy and laid it on the desk. He didn’t even feel his eyelids close, but soon he found himself in the Fade anyway.

  
The first dream was innocent enough, as he was just a small boy playing around in the estate’s yard. It was raining, and he could smell the wet grass. Nikolai smiled.

  
Then, everything fell apart. The peaceful horizon suddenly turned bright green, as if the Mark had launched itself into the sky. When Nikolai put his hand up to cover his eyes from the intense light, he saw nothing but a dark space.

  
Nikolai set his jaw to keep it from shivering like the rest of his body. He walked forward slowly until he walked onto a battlefield. Too many people were dead on the ground, and most of them did not die cleanly, as their eyes showed that most of them died in terror and fear. The Veil had been torn open, and Corypheus was stuck holding the orb over his head triumphantly.

  
Nikolai pretended it did not bother him, when a voice entered his head.

  
“You could not save her.”

The Nightmare Demon’s voice echoed throughout his brain, and Nikolai shivered. Did that mean that Stroud was dead? Or was this a remnant of his imagination bringing the nightmare back to life?

  
“You’re going to need to be more specific than that if you’re trying to get a rise out of me.” He said more confidentially than he felt.

“You’ve failed them all.” The Demon ignored his comment.  
Nikolai rolled his eyes to the green sky.

  
“Of course I have. Now will you let me sleep?” He deadpanned.

  
“No.” The Voice replied to him, and he was immediately whisked to the middle of the battlefield. Ten bodies lay in front of him, eyes unseeing and uncalculating.

  
Leliana, Cullen, and Josephine were among them. Josephine still had her clipboard in her hand. Her inkpot was splayed on the ground, and her quill had been thrown a few inches away from her.

  
Nikolai’s breathing hitched.

  
“See? You’re weak. They looked up to you as a leader- some of them even a mentor- and you failed them. As much as you wanted to protect them, you could not.”

  
Nikolai put his gaze on the ground. This thing was dead. Nikolai had made sure it had died, at the cost of a precious ally.

“No, you’re wrong. I did protect them. I s-stopped you!” Nikolai told the Demon.

  
The Demon laughed.

  
“Are you sure about that? Did you count the bodies?”

“Of course I did! Where are you going with this?”

“You missed someone. I’m surprised you missed her, too, because she is so important to you.” The Demon antagonized.

  
His mind whirling, Nikolai quickly did a body count. Everyone was there except-

  
“No.” Nikolai said lowly as realization dawned on his face.

  
“Yes!” The Nightmare Demon proudly exclamated.

  
“NO.” Nikolai shouted, desperately.

“no.” He whispered.

His stomach felt cold and now he was definitely shaking. He was transported to a different location this time, right next to where Corypheus was. He knew who it was from the Seeker emblem emblazoned on the chest of the woman. With a cry, he knelt down to the body to check her pulse.

There was nothing, and she was cold to the touch. He cradled her head with his hand.

“Cass, c’mon, wake up.” He begged. Tears began to blur his field of vision, and his breathing was shallow as he held her.

“You’re not as strong as you think. All that bravado and now you’re bawling like a baby!” The Voice laughed.

Nikolai put Cassandra down carefully, then looked up at the Veil torn sky. He bit the inside of his lip angrily. His breathing was hard and ragged.

  
They were all alive and well. Just not here. He had fallen for this demons trap, like a lost apprentice during their Harrowing. His eyes turned from pink to an icy blue. It would not happen again.

  
Nikolai woke groggily with his head on his desk. He quickly pushed himself off the desk. Sunlight was not coming in from the windows, which meant he had slept a couple of hours at most.

  
He rubbed his eyes and decided to get an early start on the day, as trying to force his eyes closed was not going to work. Slowly, he stood up and rolled his neck to get the stiffness out of it.

  
Stopping quickly by the kitchens to get a muffin and some coffee, he sat in the nearest hallway he could found and ate quietly, pretending that he wasn’t dwelling on his dream. He took out his anger at the Nightmare Demon bothering him in his dream on the muffin, accidentally biting his thumb after a particularly ferocious bite.

Nikolai sighed and checked to see if his thumb was okay. It wasn’t bleeding. Thank the Maker for small miracles. Sighing, he stood up from the staircase and decided to go to the blacksmith, ignoring the help by the Tavern giggling at him as he passed by them. He rolled his eyes, but a blush had begun to creep onto his cheeks.

  
He found her alive and well, staring at the dummy as though it had stolen her wallet. Relief washed over him. She was alive and breathing. The Fear Demon could go throw himself into the Void now. Not wanting to disturb her, he walked to the nearby tree and leaned against it.

He felt really stupid, and angry. He had allowed an enemy that he had already beaten literally get in his head and make him dread sleeping for a while.

The rage from the previous encounter caused his eyes to switch color again, and the temperature in the air started dropping degree by degree until he had accidentally frosted the dew on the tree by accident.

“I know you’re there, you know.” Cassandra informed him cooly.

“What gave me away?” He asked.

“It turned cold not even five seconds after you arrived. You’re upset.” She turned around to face him.

  
He looked at her thoughtfully for a second.

  
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. Truth be told, I didn’t sleep well last night.” He replied, carefully.

“If you slept at all.”

  
Nikolai tugged at his collar for a second before taking a deep breath in.

“T-the Fear demon appeared to me in my dream last night. He taunted me and I fell for it.” Nikolai spat, fists clenching.

  
“Did we not kill it in the Fade?” Cassandra questioned.

  
“It could have been anything, really. My best guess was that it was a vision leftover from the Fade. Otherwise, it would have manifested physically in the dream and tried to possess me.” Nikolai rubbed his neck thoughtfully.

“What do you mean by he taunted you?” She asked softly.

Nikolai grimaced at the question, and the nightmare came flooding back to him with her cold unseeing eyes on the forefront of his mind.

  
He closed his eyes and counted, like his teachers at the Circle had taught him to do when he was upset. His breathing slowed, and when it did he found himself calm enough to answer the question. Even if he was a little embarrassed about it.

  
“C-corpses. He showed me everyone’s corpses and I-I thought it was real.” His voice broke at the end of the sentence, and he pressed his hands in his eyes in an attempt to stop the prickling at the base of his skull.

He put them down after a few moments.  
“Why am I so weak? I can’t even stop a demon I stopped from torturing me in my dreams!” He yelled, and punched the wall next to him, causing a section of it to freeze over.

  
Cassandra watched his outburst carefully. She sheathed her sword and walked over to him.

  
Nikolai took a big step back at her approach, but his foot got stuck in the tree root and he was stuck desperately trying to untangle it.

“Nikolai.” She began, clearly and concisely.

  
Slowly, he craned his neck to look up at her.

  
“Cassandra.” He replied back, quietly. His chest was tight and it felt like he could not breathe.

  
“The next time you call yourself weak I will hit you over the head.” She threatened lightly.

  
He pursed his lips to keep from fighting back a smile in relief.

“I did not realize that what I said made you so angry.”

“More than angry, actually.” She replied casually. She was pouting, and Nikolai couldn’t fight the smile for much longer.

  
“I wasn’t expecting a threat this early in the morning. Those usually don’t happen until noon at the earliest.” He remarked, earning a glare from her.

Nikolai finally smiled, shaking his head as he did so. This made her frown more.

“What?”

“I was being serious.” She lied to him.

“I don’t believe you.” He put his hands behind his back.  
Cassandra rolled her eyes, but she was smiling at him. Before he lost his nerve, Nikolai put his hand on her cheek. He then leaned in and kissed her. They stayed there for a while until he decided to come up for breath.

“Thank you. I love you.” He whispered to her.

“And I you. “ She told him before kissing him again, quickly.

“Now, if you’re done distracting me some of us have actual duties to attend to.”

“Of course. I am not looking forward to sitting in the War Room today. I’m running on two hours of sleep.”

“The quicker you go the sooner it will be over, yes?” She asked him.

“Good point. I’ll see you later.” He said, before kissing her quickly on the cheek, and leaving the courtyard. She watched him leave her field of vision before taking the sword out her sheathe.

**Author's Note:**

> See? Everyone's fine and no one's dead!
> 
> This was partially inspired by an idea I had, in which the Nightmare Demon in the Fade had the ability to give the Inquistor a vision of their worst fear, so I had to write it out!


End file.
